Hudbay Minerals lawsuits (re Guatemala)

On 28 March 2011 a group of 11 Guatemalan women filed a lawsuit in Superior Court in Ontario, Canada, against Hudbay Minerals and its subsidiary HMI Nickel Inc. The women alleged that the companies were complicit in the gang rapes suffered by the women at the hands of security personnel hired by the defendant companies. The women claim that the gang rapes occurred in January 2007 during forced evictions of members of the Mayan Q’eqchi’ community living in El Estor. The companies’ nickel mining project – the Fenix project – is located in El Estor. Members of this community have challenged the legitimacy of the mining concession granted for the Fenix project. Hudbay Minerals says it will vigorously defend itself against the allegations of rape.

The plaintiffs are part of El Estor’s Mayan Q’eqchi’ community. Most of this community has never accepted the legitimacy of the mining concession and land rights granted by the Guatemalan Government for the Fenix project. The plaintiffs argue that the concession is on their ancestral land and was granted to Hudbay without adequately consulting the Q’eqchi’ community. They have protested the development of the project and opposed the removal and resettlement of their homes and community.

In addition to the March 2011 lawsuit filed against Hudbay Minerals, a lawsuit was filed in September 2010 by the widow of a Q’eqchi community leader, Ich Chamán, who was severely beaten and shot in 2009 during a protest against the Fenix mine. His widow, Angelina Choc, claims that security guards from the Fenix project violently beat and shot Chamán, who was unarmed, and killed him. (Ms. Choc is also a plaintiff in the March 2011 lawsuit described above.) The plaintiff alleged that Hudbay Minerals failed to take adequate precautions to ensure human rights abuses would be not be perpetrated by its security personnel.

On 10 December 2011, another lawsuit was filed against Hudbay Minerals in Canada by a survivor of a shooting incident at the Fenix project. The plaintiff, who became paraplegic as a result, alleges that in September of 2009 he was shot at close range in an unprovoked attack by the chief of security for Hudbay’s Fenix project.

All three lawsuits are ongoing. In February 2013 Hudbay withrew its opposition to having the case heard in Canadian court. On 22 July 2013 the Superior Court of Ontario ruled that the lawsuits can proceed to trial in Canadian court. In late June 2015, the Ontario Court of Justice ordered Hudbay Minerals to disclose internal corporate documentation including information regarding its corporate structure and its control over its subsidiary in Guatemala. In November 2017, 11 guatemalan women travelled to Canada to give testimony as part of the ongoing discovery procedure.

...The 11 women say they were raped repeatedly by the armed men...The women link the violence to the nearby Fenix mine...and the Guatemalan subsidiary that was overseeing its operations...[and] controlled by Vancouver-based Skye Resources. In 2008, Skye was acquired by Toronto’s Hudbay Minerals...

...A team of Toronto lawyers [filed] civil lawsuits that argue that the Canadian parent company, later acquired by Hudbay, was negligent when it came to monitoring the actions of its Guatemalan subsidiary.

...[I]n 2013...a court in Ontario dismissed an application by Hudbay to throw out the case. The decision marked the first time in Canada that foreign claimants had been granted access to the courts in order to pursue Canadian companies for alleged human rights abuses abroad.

...The Guatemalan women last month travelled to Toronto for the case’s discovery phase, fielding hours of questions from lawyers for the company.

...Hudbay has disputed the allegations...

...The lawsuits against Hudbay are unlikely to reach court for years...But they have already paved the way for similar cases, including a legal challenge that links a Vancouver-based company to allegations of modern slavery.

A former security guard for a Canadian-owned mining company accused of killing an Indigenous activist and leaving another paralyzed will have to face a new murder trial, an appeal court in Guatemala has ruled.

The ruling against Mynor Padilla, who was initially acquitted of murder and aggravated assault in April, comes amid an ongoing landmark lawsuit against Toronto-based Hudbay Minerals in Canada.

Padilla was charged in the 2009 death of Adolfo Ich and in the shooting of German Chub, who was left paralyzed at a Hudbay-owned mine…

Hudbay Minerals spokesman Scott Brubacher said Friday the guilty verdict appeared to have been reversed on procedural grounds, but the appeal court refused a prosecution request to substitute a guilty verdict.

The company has previously expressed its belief that Padilla was innocent. It has also insisted it was being falsely accused of displaying a pattern of human-rights and environmental abuses, and the claims against it were without merit…

[I]nequality in access to information reinforces the existing imbalance of power between victims and companies, denying to victims information required to file a case or prove their claims. ..[G]ranting access to evidence can rectify the imbalance...[C]ourts should ease access to information wherever a company holds it, following the examples of courts and laws in the US, Canada, and Netherlands. Information sharing and international collaboration between courts is beneficial for all stakeholders because it facilitates resolution of disputes...[In addition,] [s]tronger legislation similar to the US [Foreign Legal Assistance] Statute...would go a long way...

A Guatemalan court today acquitted Mynor Padilla of murdering Guatemalan community leader and indigenous activist Adolfo Ich in 2009, when Padilla was the head of security for a large mine in Guatemala then owned by Canadian company Hudbay Minerals. Padilla was also acquitted of the point blank shooting of another community member German Chub...Ich's wife and others are pursuing a lawsuit against Hudbay Minerals in Canada regarding these incidents..."The Guatemalan legal system is corrupt and seeking justice there is, sadly, hopeless...That's precisely why Angelica's and German's best hope for justice against Hudbay has always been in Canadian courts." In addition to the acquittal, the Guatemalan judge went much farther into unexpected territory by asking for the extreme step that criminal charges be brought against most of those involved in the prosecution of Mynor Padilla...The "not guilty" verdict comes despite damning eyewitness testimony of the murder, and ballistic and forensic evidence...The acquittal of Mynor Padilla has raised fears that the victims and their families may be subject to acts of retaliation and violence for their role in pursuing justice...A Canadian court issued a landmark decision in 2013 allowing the case to proceed against Hudbay in Ontario...

…Former Guatemalan Army colonel and head of security at the Guatemalan Nickel Company (CGN) [part of Hudbay Minerals] Mynor Padilla is absolved of the murder of Q'eqchi' Mayan anti-mining leader and land rights activist Adolfo Ich Chaman and serious injuries to German Chub Choc (among others). Filmed during the commemorations for the 7th anniversary of Adolfo Ich's murder in September 2016 and featuring Angelica Choc, widow of Ich Chaman…

…During the country's 36-year civil war and genocide, the U.S.-trained Kaibil special forces committed some of the very worst atrocities and war crimes…A new criminal investigation in Guatemala is investigating whether the country's army and Kaibil special forces worked with Hudbay Minerals and CGN (Guatemalan Nickel Company, then owned by Hudbay) private security guards to mount a military intelligence and population control operation, before, during and after the day (September 27, 2009) of repression against local Mayan Qeqchi communities that resulted in the assassination of Adolfo Ich, the shooting-paralyzing of German Chub, and the wounding of various other community members...The families of Angelica Choc (widow of Adolfo Ich) and German Chub (shot and left paralyzed the day Adolfo Ich was killed) fear they may suffer further repercussions due to their courageous role in this trial…[Mentions Tahoe Resources]

"Wave of foreign lawsuits against local miners hits Canadian courts", 19 Apr 2016

In the coming months, the [British Columbia] BC Supreme Court is expected to decide whether a civil claim against a B.C. company with a mine in Eritrea can be heard in Canada. Three former Eritrean mine workers claim Nevsun Resources Ltd...was complicit in the Eritrean government’s use of conscripted labour and other human rights abuses at the company’s Bisha mine...The Nevsun claim is one of three that have been launched against Canadian mining companies since 2014...The...claims are part of a recent trend of Canadian mining companies operating abroad being taken to court in Canada by litigants who claim they cannot get justice in their own countries...According to...[Canadian Centre for International Justice] CCIJ, Canadian mining companies have operated for too many years with impunity in countries with lax environmental and human rights standards...The recent claims...have prompted renewed calls from Liberal MP John McKay for a Canadian ombudsperson that would investigate complaints about Canadian extraction companies operating abroad.....

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